She felt a knot form in her stomach. He’d never spoken to her in that tone before. From day one, Galen had been lighthearted, teasingly coercive or passionate. Never this serious. She settled on the small sofa tucked against the wall and waited for him to speak. He rubbed at his eyes a moment and then drilled her with a look that made her feel like an insect on a pin.
“I’d like you to tell me about your article.”
“I told you before,” she hedged. “It’s about strong women in business.”
“Peyton, we both know that isn’t true.”
“Have you been sneaking into my computer?”
“No, I haven’t. But I will admit I have read your article about Nagy.” He briefly outlined what had happened the afternoon Ellie had come home sick.
“You had no right to read that,” Peyton said firmly.
“You had no right to write lies about my grandmother.”
“Everything I’ve said in that article is true.”
“Really? Are your sources legitimate? I notice you don’t refer to anyone by their real name. Not even your own father.”
“Alice fired my father without adequate proof and without an independent investigation. Have you got any idea of what that did to my family?”
“So this is about revenge, then.” His voice was cold and his face set like stone.
“You had better believe it. Not everyone has the chance to see the world through rose-tinted glasses like you Horvaths do. You don’t even see the truth in one another. When your grandmother fired my father, she as good as murdered my mom. Without Dad’s benefits we couldn’t afford to stay near her doctors, let alone afford her ongoing care when she started to suffer from seizures. What Alice did to us was unspeakable. The shame of what she’d accused my dad of was bad enough for Mom without having to sell our home and move away from everyone we knew. But your grandmother couldn’t resist going one step further, could she? She had to go and smear my father’s name so it became impossible for him to find a decent job.
“Do you know what it did to him to have to take on work detailing cars and cleaning bathrooms in office buildings just so we could eat? It crushed him that he couldn’t provide for Mom’s health care. It wasn’t her MS that killed her. It was a broken spirit. Broken by your grandmother.”
“Your father made his choices.”
“Oh, of course you’d say that,” Peyton spit in disgust. “All of you are the same. I had begun to think you were different. That maybe I was making a mistake. The article you saw, that was a draft. I’d even begun to wonder if I was doing the right thing. But your attitude right now is typical of what I’d always believed your family to be. You’re so damned self-righteous. You don’t believe for a second you could be in the wrong. You’ve never had to struggle and fight for anything. You have no idea what it’s like for the rest of us, and you never will. Yes, your grandparents built a dynasty. But they did it at the cost of other people’s happiness, and it’s past time people got to see the real Alice Horvath. She’s not the warm, friendly character you all portray. She has a backbone of steel and ice water runs in her veins. She had no compassion for my family, none, and that killed my mother! My father struggled to raise me and, because of your grandmother, I couldn’t raise my own daughter.”
Galen stiffened under her verbal assault. His face, already stern, now looked as though it had been carved from granite, and his blue eyes turned glacial. In this moment he looked more like his grandmother than Peyton had ever seen him, and it shocked her.
“I think you had better stop there,” he said very carefully. “Before you say anything more you might regret.”
“I regret nothing,” she answered, determined not to give an inch.
“Really? And what is this all for? You already told me you and your father barely speak.”
“We never got the chance to have a normal father-daughter relationship thanks to Alice!”
“Did you really think that writing this muck about my grandmother would turn back the clock for him and you? That you’d be able to rebuild the relationship you think you should have had with him?”
Peyton couldn’t speak for the pain that had built like a giant burr behind her breastbone.
“Tell me, Peyton, what did you hope to gain from our marriage?” Galen continued. “Material for that article? Was that all?”
She nodded and pursed her lips. She didn’t trust herself to speak right now, not when she could hear the note of hurt beneath the anger in his voice. She’d told herself from the start that the end justified the means. Her parents deserved to have their truth be told, both them and the others who’d been unfairly dismissed from Horvath Corporation. She was their crusader, their voice in the darkness, their right from wrong. She wasn’t about to let some stupid emotions get in the way of all of that.
“So the whole thing is a sham for you—is that what you’re saying?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
She thought it wouldn’t matter—that she’d be able to keep her feelings secure behind the rock-solid walls she’d erected around her for all her adult life—but faced with his anger, his disappointment, his hurt, she knew those walls would never be high or deep enough to save her from the pain that had begun to unravel inside. By attacking Alice Horvath, she’d hurt Galen deeply, and by hurting him, she’d hurt herself.
“Oh, I think we’ve probably both said enough for today, don’t you?” His voice vibrated with pain and fury. “I want you out of here, out of my life and away from Ellie before you can poison her, too.”
His words stung her like the lash of a whip. Logically she knew he had every right to demand she leave this house immediately, but the reality of it was excruciating.
“I’ll pack and leave in the morning after Ellie’s gone to school.”
“Thank you.” He bit the words out as if they left a bad taste in his mouth. “I’ll sleep in one of the other rooms tonight.”
“No, don’t. I’ll go back to my room.”
He acknowledged her offer with a lift of his head. Silence stretched between them interminably. Peyton felt as though she should say something but she was frozen in place, still filled with shock that he’d discovered what she was doing before she could extricate herself from what had become a messy situation. She snapped herself out of it, spun on her heel and left Galen’s office to go upstairs.
In her old room she sat on the bed. She’d never imagined he’d find out. Somehow she’d always thought she could just do her thing, release her article and walk away. But it turned out nothing was simple anymore. People complicated things. Which was one of the reasons she’d never allowed anyone to get close to her since her baby’s father had died, she reminded herself.
But Galen had looked stricken. Not just because of what she’d said in her article, but on another level. As if he’d begun to develop feelings for her that went deeper than being bed buddies and coparenting Ellie. She felt the sharp pain behind her breastbone again.
Peyton tried to do what she’d always done: default to anger. Anger was a useful emotion—not like love or sorrow or any of the weaknesses that left you exposed to other people. Anger was something you could work with. She sat where she was and allowed it to grow, stoking it with the list of Alice’s transgressions, which had broken her family into tiny splintered pieces.
The list was long—from her mom’s inability to pay for treatment to the dog they’d had to give away. From her father’s bitter emotional distance to Peyton’s desperation to find love with a stranger. From finding out she was pregnant by a man she barely knew, but believed she’d loved, to learning of his death and having to give up custody of her newborn daughter. Oh yes, and then there was all the financial hardship in between. Being that child at school wearing clothing from the thrift store, clothing that one of the popular kids’ moms had left there, and being ridiculed for it. All of it could be la
id squarely at Alice Horvath’s feet.
So, Galen wanted her gone from here. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. She couldn’t wait to leave.
And Ellie? Would leaving Ellie behind be easy? No, of course not. But she’d said goodbye to her own baby—a child she’d nurtured and carried for forty weeks and three days before giving birth. A child she’d left in the nursery as she’d walked out of the hospital and turned her back on motherhood forever. This idyll with Ellie had been a taste of what she might have had—but she couldn’t afford to dwell on that. Instead, she had to let the black hole that had opened deep inside her consume the love she’d developed for the little girl.
And what about Galen? No, she couldn’t think about him. Couldn’t give words to how she felt about him—how he’d made her feel. She’d known from the start that getting married would be a risk. That was what her work was about. Taking that risk. Pushing that envelope. But it came at a very high cost.
Seventeen
Peyton stripped the bed in her room and balled the sheets up in her arms. She’d barely slept a wink during the night and at about 4:00 a.m. she’d given up entirely and begun to pack her things. She hadn’t brought much—knowing in the back of her mind that this wouldn’t last forever.
And now it was over. She felt as if she’d suffered a bereavement. There was no triumph in the piece she’d written. No sense of completion. Just this yawning, aching hole deep inside her, knowing that today she was walking away from Galen and Ellie forever. She’d spent a lot of last night thinking about Galen’s reaction, about his anger. Not to mention his protectiveness toward Ellie.
She’d known the article would affect everyone associated with Alice in one way or another. Even Ellie viewed Alice as a much-loved great-grandmother. The knowledge that the fallout would hurt the little girl pricked like needles under Peyton’s skin. Hurting Ellie had never been on her agenda. She’d just wanted the world to see Alice for who she really was. And yes, as Galen had suggested yesterday, maybe rebuild a better relationship with her father.
A knock at her bedroom door startled her. “Yes?”
“It’s me. Can I come in?” Galen’s voice sounded strained.
“Of course,” she said.
Her body clenched on a wash of pure physical reaction as he came into her room and shut the door behind him. Dressed in a dark navy suit and pale blue business shirt and tie, he was the epitome of a Horvath—power and success exuded from every pore. He looked tired, with shadows beneath his eyes, and she felt a spiteful tinge of satisfaction that he’d probably had no more rest last night than she had.
“Look, about our discussion last night.”
“I think you made your wishes perfectly clear. I’ll leave as soon as Ellie’s safely at school.”
“Yes, well, there’s been a change in plans. I’ve been called to go to Japan for urgent meetings. I had hoped that perhaps Maggie could live in while I was away so Ellie’s timetable wouldn’t be disrupted, but she is unable to do so. Can I ask you to please stay on, at least until my return?”
“Well, make up your mind, won’t you?” Peyton couldn’t help the irritated tone in her voice. “First you want me out of here, now you want me to stay?”
“This isn’t my preference, Peyton. You’re the one who made a mockery of our marriage, our family.”
Oh, he knew how to hurt her and, she reluctantly admitted, she deserved it.
“Fine. I could do with the time to make some arrangements anyway. How long will you be gone?”
“A week, possibly ten days.” He shifted, looking uncomfortable. “If I could have had anyone else here, I would. But Ellie is bonded to you and without me here...” His voice trailed off.
“I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.” He turned to leave but then turned around and faced her again. “And you will say nothing to Ellie about us separating. I will deal with that myself on my return. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Her throat closed up. She could barely breathe, let alone speak. While his face remained as implacable as it had been last night, in his gaze she could see the turmoil and hurt. Turmoil and hurt she’d caused. He closed his eyes briefly and when he reopened them all those feelings had been wiped away and replaced with a resolve that reminded her very much of his grandmother.
“I’ll call Ellie before bed every night.”
She nodded and watched as he opened the door and left. She waited until she heard the front door slam before she managed to pull herself together and head downstairs. Ellie was perched at the breakfast table, finishing her cereal. Maggie was humming happily in the kitchen. It was like any other morning, except it wasn’t.
* * *
Galen was exhausted. The return flight from Tokyo had been full of turbulence, and while that didn’t normally bother him, Ellie’s fears related to losing her parents had weighed on his mind and made him anxious to get home.
His driver dropped him at the front door of the house and he grabbed his case and let himself inside. The house was quiet, so quiet that he wondered whether or not Peyton had already moved out. He shook his head. She might be a devious piece of work but she’d never abandon Ellie. He was sure of that.
He heard a sound on the staircase. Peyton.
The sight of her was like a punch to the gut. Every cell in his body went into overdrive. He’d missed their physical connection with an ache that had been present the entire time he’d been away. Ten long days and even longer nights. But, he reminded himself, he’d better get used to it. She was out of here very soon. In fact, now that he was back, it may as well be today.
“All packed?” he asked, dispensing with any of the usual greetings.
“Not quite,” she answered.
He could see his words had irritated her. Good, because he was irritated, too. Why did this all have to be such a debacle? He’d talked to his grandmother while he was away, probing for information about Peyton without telling Nagy exactly why he couldn’t just ask his wife directly. Nagy had been tight-lipped, advising him to stop beating around the bush and to speak to Peyton. But how did he tell Nagy that Peyton would be out of all their lives very soon, and that they’d need to collectively batten down the hatches as a family if the fallout from Peyton’s damned article was as bad as he suspected it might be?
Galen dragged his thoughts back to the woman in front of him.
“I’m back. You don’t need to be here anymore,” he said bluntly.
“Your grandmother is coming to visit. Tomorrow. Would you like me gone before or after she arrives?”
Galen bit back the frustrated retort on the edge of his tongue. “My preference doesn’t matter. She will obviously expect to see us both. You’d better stay until we find out what she wants.”
“Fine.”
He watched Peyton stalk away and heard a door upstairs slam soon after. Then he dropped into the nearest chair. What a damn mess—and what the hell was Nagy up to, making a spur-of-the-moment visit like this?
* * *
Peyton heard the car pull up in the driveway and straightened herself before going to open the front door. Maggie had been instructed to make up the downstairs guest suite in preparation for Alice’s arrival and had even agreed to extra hours to ensure that every whim that Alice might express could be met. Ellie had been over the moon with excitement when she’d heard the old lady was coming to stay. Peyton certainly didn’t feel the same. And there Alice was, standing in the doorway, looking a little older, a little frailer than she had a few weeks ago, when Peyton had interviewed her.
“Alice, welcome. Please, come inside,” Peyton said stiffly.
“Are you the sole member of the welcoming committee?” the older woman asked, offering her cheek for a kiss.
Peyton bent and brushed her lips against the wrinkled skin, and was surprised to feel the press of Alice’s
lips against her cheek.
“It’s good to see you, my dear. How have you been? Working too hard, by the look of you.”
“I could say the same about you,” Peyton responded in kind and was rewarded with a chuckle of approval.
“I like you, Peyton. I wasn’t sure I would, but I really do.”
Peyton took a step back—Alice’s words were both a surprise and a shock. Well, she might like her now, but that was sure to change.
“Now, where are my grandson and my great-granddaughter?”
“Ellie will be home from school shortly and Galen is on his way here as we speak. An unexpected call held him up.”
He’d texted her earlier, saying he’d been delayed. Texting seemed to be the only way they were able to remain civil to one another these days.
“Will Ellie be joining us at dinner tonight?” Alice asked, giving Peyton a sharp look.
“No, it’s a school night. We thought it best if she not stay out too late.”
Alice nodded. “Hmm, probably just as well.”
“Just as well?”
“We have a lot to discuss. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a little beauty rest. You could do with following my example.”
Peyton blinked in surprise at the insult. Then she realized Alice was teasing. She didn’t quite know how she felt about that but opted for a smile. “Have a good rest, Alice. The bed in the guest room is all made up. I’ll make sure Ellie doesn’t disturb you.”
She rolled Alice’s suitcase into the bedroom and hoisted it onto a stand for her, then left the old woman to her devices. Probably casting spells and mixing up potions, she thought with an uncharitable smirk. But then she stopped herself. Alice had said she liked her, and the woman was known to be painfully blunt about things. The knowledge that she’d somehow broken past the barrier of acceptance was bittersweet and filled her with unaccustomed warmth. That was rapidly quenched with the icy reality of how this family would treat her once her article went out. She’d delayed sending it to her editor, telling herself she needed to triple fact-check every word. But she knew that everything was perfect and ready to go. All she had to do was push Send. Yet, somehow, something held her back.
Vengeful Vows (Marriage At First Sight Book 3) Page 14
